


The Best Gift

by Arisprite



Series: The Doumeki Family Storybook [7]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Also Haruka, Also oh my gosh it's in 2nd person present tense i'm so sorry, Birthdays, Character deaths are canon ones after long lives, Doumeki Ayame, Doumeki Haruka the 2nd, F/M, Gen, Happy birthday fic to Doumeki, I didn't mean to do that, M/M, it's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisprite/pseuds/Arisprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doumeki's birthdays over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Gift

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write something happyfluffy for Doumeki's birthday. Maybe something in the restaurant, or some other au. Or happy canon au?? Instead, I have this sprawling, lyrical monster, that spans his whole life. It's bitter sweet, with happy and sad parts, and I don't know??? Also, it's no longer Doumeki's birthday for most of the world, so I'm so late. 
> 
> Oh well. Enjoy, I hope!
> 
> The last section was inspired by a drawing by Chronologiical on tumblr. [See it here!](http://chronologiical.tumblr.com/post/140391468810/happy-birthday) because it made me so sad and happy at the same time.

You’re eight years old. Around the temple, there are peach blossom decorations, and dolls for the girls, but it’s your birthday, and your parents and grandfather make sure to note it. 

You don’t invite any of the children you’ve seen at school. You don’t go enough to know them, and they’re loud. When you cough and cough, they feel awkward, and look away, so you don’t really care to have them over anyway. 

Your mother makes rice and stuffs it into tofu wrappers. It’s not your favorite, but it’s something that always tastes good when you’re sick. 

Your lungs are painful today, throat sore. You aren’t allowed outside, but Grandfather comes into your room, with a rolled cigarette hanging from his lips. It isn’t lit, because it would make you cough more, but you love the smell that lingers on his yukata. 

He puts his big hand on your head, then shoulder. Squeezes. Smiles. 

He’s brought you a book. It’s about archery, the kind he does. He says he’ll teach you, when you’re well. 

It’s the best gift he could have given you. 

 

~~~~~

You’re seventeen years old. You’re seventeen, and your birthday is lost in the midst of spirit attacks, and hitsuzen, and the boy you care about more than you should slowly losing his grip on existence. It’s terrifying, and anxiety inducing and you don’t even remember your birthday under that strain, until the morning dawns and little girls are dressed up in the streets. 

Your mother makes subpar inarizushi, which you eat because you love her. 

Your grandfather is gone, so he gets you nothing, besides the stories Watanuki lets slip of meeting him in dreams. You suppose that’s enough - it’s more than most people get. 

Your three friends in the world remember when you do not. 

Himawari gets you a new case for your school books, one you can take to college. She orders it online, and sends it to your house, so she can’t affect it with her curse. You know it doesn’t matter for you anyway, but you appreciate the effort she takes to keep you safe. 

Tsuyuri makes you a flower crown, one of her movements towards healing. At eleven, she’s too old to sit for daisy chains, but the peach blossoms are out, and she twists them together for you to wear, when she finds out it’s your birthday. It’s sweet, you think, and you put your hand on her head in thanks. 

Watanuki, in the midst of everything for him, does remember. He makes you cupcakes, and comes to find you at the temple. He says to share, but he doesn’t eat them. You do, and they taste wonderful: chocolate and rich fudge, but also like sadness and fear. You stare at him until he’s uncomfortable, and yells at you - anything to stop his skin going transluscent, and his eyes from drifting towards dreams instead of reality. You make him so mad, he shakes you by the neck, and it’s the best gift you’ve ever had. 

~~~~~

 

You’re twenty two years old, and you’ve lost him. You know you loved him. Love him. But any chance you ever had is gone, gone with Yuuko and Himawari and your happy, normal life. Watanuki is trapped, by his own choice, his own wish, and there’s nothing anyone can do. 

Your hand floats to the egg in your pocket, as it often does - but no. It’s not the right time. Is it? 

Watanuki grows powerful, sad, tragic. He grants wishes. You run errands. You try to study, and take exams, and pass your classes.

This birthday passes unnoticed, up until Watanuki sucks in pipe smoke in the evening, hard enough to make himself cough, just a little. 

“Isn’t it March?” he asks. He loses months like water through his fingers. You are impressed. 

“March 3rd,” you respond, and he frowns at you. He gets up and storms into the kitchen, to throw together an impromptu birthday dinner, though he doesn’t have what he needs for cupcakes again. He made sure to tell you that if you’d told him sooner, you could have had your request. It’s a good day for Watanuki, you can tell. Last year, he didn’t notice February or March passing. 

You eat the plate of cinnamon peach tarts, and drink with Watanuki. He was bound by so many rules, and laws of the universe, that you feel warmed by the best gift Watanuki could manage. 

 

~~~~~

 

You’re thirty five years old and this year there is a planned party, for your birthday, complete with cake, and streamers. Your daughter insists, ever since she learned what birthdays are. Her fourth is coming up, but being told that Daddy’s birthday is first, makes her want to ensure that his party is as good as she wants hers to be. You do everything she says.

They plan for it to be at the shop, where Uncle Watanuki lives, again because Ayame demands it. Her birthday will be the same. The food is prepared and you and Kohane arrive with your rambunctious little girl in tow. Watanuki welcomes you, and it hits you anew how much better he is, in the years since he made this choice, as the magic settled in him, and his occupation produced a pattern that was sustainable, instead of shattering him apart.

It hits you that you’re better too, since marrying Kohane and starting a family. A growing family, as you glance at your wife’s rounded stomach. You’ve given up much, so much, and gained much more. 

It’s helped you all to have a child around, and there would soon be another. 

The festivities begin, and Kohane takes your hand, and leans her head on your shoulder. 

“Happy birthday,” she says, and it is. 

Watanuki brings out the cupcakes; chocolate and fudge and tasting of power, and loneliness that wasn’t unbearable. He’s made inarizushi, plump and perfect, and peach jam for the bread Kohane baked. 

Ayame comes up to you, shyly for once, and smiles at you. She’s beginning to fill in her gummy smile with baby teeth, and the books you’ve read tell you that in only a couple years, she’ll lose those teeth again to adorable gaps. 

“This is for you, Daddy,” she says, and you take a crayon drawn picture, with vaguely people shaped blobs. You, Kohane, your mother, Oba-chan, Uncle Watanuki, Maru and Moro, and a little back circle that had to be Mokona. All Ayame’s favorite people. Coincidentally, all of yours as well. 

It’s the best gift ever. 

 

~~~~~

 

You’re fifty eight years old, and this is the first time you’ve been back to the shop in a few months. Your young son, Haruka, has recently been taking over the family responsibility of caring for the wish granter, and your old bones are getting tired. Kohane usually swats at you, saying you’re not that old, but there’s a big difference between the stamina of of teenager, and your nearly sixty years. 

Your grandfather, Haruka, died at sixty. That thought doesn’t worry you, but you begin to see how he might have been the tired man you knew. 

Watanuki looks the same, and half smiles and frowns to see you, telling you you’re lazy in your old age, to just make young Haru do all the errands. After all these years, you know that’s Watanuki’s way of saying you should visit more, so you make a mental note to do so. 

You’ve brought peach wine, and you open the bottle, drinking it on the porch like you always did. You discuss the family. Ayame is in America at the moment; her energy was always too big for this small island country. Haru is doing well at school. Kohane’s recent client has encouraged her to write her experiences and thoughts on what she knows, and she’s considering it. Watanuki tells of recent wishes, of the woman who wished to see her son again, and the price was her house here. The money bought the ticket to England, and the whole thing tied up nicely. 

You chuckle, at Watanuki’s pleasure at that. He looks at you, perhaps surprised at your openness. 

“Much has changed,” he murmurs, and you nod. 

“It has.” And you know that he is looking at you, perhaps seeing the silver streaks almost overtaking your black hair, the way your hands are growing thinner, the tendons and veins standing out, like you remember your grandfather’s. You smile, and take a sip under his scrutiny. Then, he reaches out to poke your cheek, a thin young finger jabbing into your face firmly. 

“I never thought you, of all people would have smile wrinkles.” 

You never did either, but your life has given you reason, though you never thought it would. Watanuki smirks at you, and pours you more wine. 

You drink, and smile a little more. Yes, you are happy. It’s taken over forty years, perhaps because of your own stupidity, but be that as it may. Regrets pass, but the quiet joy of companionship, and family, were the best gift of this life. 

 

~~~~~

 

You’re seventy years old, and you’re saying goodbye to your wife. She knew it was coming, for months now. Fortune teller aside, that’s what the doctors have been saying. No wishes could save her, for it was not her desire. Kohane is at peace. You can tell. 

You hold her hand, and she grips it back, softly, like she’d break your thin fingers with her thinner ones. Your rings glint together, and you bow your head over your clasped hands. She runs the other hand through your silver hair, catching her IV on your shoulder. You lift up your head, and look at her. 

She’s sixty five years old, and beautiful. Her hair never lost it’s sheen, the way it curled and swung to her waist. It’s thinner now, and is braided by your trembling hands each morning, though you realize that the last morning was today. You put a peach clip into the end today, for the festival. You’re glad you did. Your breath catches, and you lose sight of her, even with the glasses you’d acquired in your old age. 

She puts her hand on your cheek. 

“I love you,” she breathes, and you nod. You do too, but your voice is gone. “I love you, Shizuka, and I don’t regret any of it.” 

Regrets are for the young, you want to say, but instead you lean forward to kiss her one last time. Her lips are still as warm as they should be. She pulls back, and smiles at you, and it’s only then that you can see her pallor. She’s leaving you. You, and your children and grandchildren, and Watanuki still in the shop. 

“I’ll miss you,” you finally whisper. It unstoppers your voice. “Every day. Thank you, for being together with me, through all of it.” 

Her hand squeezes yours, and you try not to notice how weakly. You converse, about little things, and for once, you talk more than she. You speak of the family, and Watanuki and memories that come to mind at random. She doesn’t mind, and smiles at you the whole while. 

You realize she’s been at your side, loyalty and happily, for so many years. She’s given you the best gift possible. 

~~~~~

 

You would have been one hundred years old. You’re no longer there, but your gravestone marks the shrine where you have been interred alongside your family members; family that goes back for generations. A man is visiting. He looks too long for his body, like a teenager who’s finally hitting the growth spurt that will take him to the size he’ll be as a man. No one would call this man a boy, a teenager. His eyes are too old, and far far too sad. 

Under his red umbrella, the man places his hand on the gravestone. His face is wistful. 

There is silence for a long time, as the man breathes in the smell of the grass, and peach blossoms. The weather had been iffy throughout the walk there, but right now the sun is shining.

Noticing that, the man seems to take great care in shaking off the water droplets from the umbrella, and folding it up again. It goes well with his traditional clothing, though he’d drawn looks on the way there. 

Then, he lets out a breath. 

“Happy birthday, Doumeki,” he says to your grave. “You and your family were the best gift anyone could ask for.” 

The wind picks up, blowing more clouds aside, to shine the sun down all the clearer. It wasn’t warm, but it would be soon. The man put out his hand to feel the shine, and then turned, tucking the umbrella under his arm. 

Then he walked away, and your grave, and Kohane’s and your mother’s and grandpa Haruka’s and all the rest of the Doumeki line, were left to gleam in the sun.


End file.
